Sunday, August 15, 2010

on the road again

Left the marina yesterday and motored 10 hours down the canal with no problems-yeah! Spent last night outside lock 20 with no services so left early and weather on phone chased us to Little Falls town dock for nice showers- and a lock festival in town so walked the mile downtown for music and carnival food- funnel cake-mmmm, rain held off until almost to the boat.Locks in windy weather are tough for me to keep the bow from hitting the lock wall so happy to make it a short day after 2 windy locks today-no mast so wind is no fun.Yesterday we crossed Onieda Lake-supposed to be the 5th deadliest lake in the U.S.- Shallow so very choppy-a boat capsized yesterday but we have seen worse for sure in Lake Erie. chris

So we have a new ball valve on the water intake thru hull, a strainer over the thru hull, a cleaned heat exchanger, replaced the waterpump impeller, a new Mixing Elbow, a new radiator cap, and a new thermostat. Probaly a combo of all the weeds in the canal and some blocked tubes in the heat exchanger is what caused our problems. On our first sea trial after the repairs we overheated due to the weeds plugging our sea strainer, so that is when I decidedto have the boat hauled and have a strainer installed over the intake and have the old gate valve replaced. The weeds are thick in the canal and you really need a good strainer over your water pick up. The Ball valve was not leaking when I checked in the AM and operating it does not cause it to leak so it must of been the water in bilge I was seeing after the install.